If there's one thing i love more than my good old (90's) anime series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Digimon Adventure, Card Captor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Fushigi Yugi, and Detective Conan, that's a good B movie. Or not so "good" but still, sometimes you can watch a low-budget, indie movie that is just you know, not the blockbuster that Marvel used to be but still, you love it.
I have a soft spot in my heart for low-budget, made with love mostly, movies. I used to call them "trashy", but it's not that they are "trashy", they are just made by your regular person, and most of the time they are made by people who really love the movie they are making, not only thinking about making millions with it (or at least i don't think so).
Some cult movies started in this category and became, well, cult movies, but others are still living in the underground for most, but are cult movies for me.
A saga that is a Cult Saga for me and i hope some others because the guy working on them really gives his everything on them is the "Bad Ben" saga by Nigel Bach.
This love story (aka me loving these movies) started because i was looking for every found footage movie i could find a few years ago.
Found footage is my absolute favorite genre of movies. I just, from the moment i watched 'The Blair Witch Project' at the tender age of 10 years old, fell in love with this kind of movie and they are by far the ones i enjoy the most.
So a few years ago i decided i'll watch every single found footage movie i could find and i stumbled upon this saga of movies (13 by the time i'm writing this). You can see it's a low-budget saga of movies, but it doesn't take from the love these movies are made with.
Why do i think these movies are made for the love of it, you ask?
Because the director, Nigel Bach has gotten out 13 movies in the last 8 years.
You say those are way too many movies in a short period? Well, as i see it, this guy loves this story so much he has been working in these movies for a really long time and keeps writing and writing about this haunted house, about this Tom Riley character he made up, he just loves it and wants to keep this story alive. At least that's how i see it.
Maybe i'm projecting my love for the stories i come up with, but these aren't the most well-known movies, this is not Disney making profit of Marvel or Star Wars by releasing a bunch of different works every year. This is an indie director releasing his movies on his YouTube channel.
Sure, you have to pay a subscription to watch them when you want to, but he also makes marathons where you can just watch them live. Also, paying a subscription to his Youtube channel to watch his movies has been way more satisfying than paying Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney where even though there's a lot of content i just cannot find what to watch lately, i just cannot cancel them because i have a lot of people using those subscriptions to watch what they want on my tab.
Actually, the only subscription i would still maintain if it was just for me would be Netflix, because that's the one platform where all my favorite shows are.
But that's not what i wanted to talk about in this post.
The thing is, there are so many people in this world, so many ideas, so many people with stories to tell. Some are just writing them because they are being very well paid for them, some others just want to share the characters, the events they created on their minds.
Both ways are acceptable ways of sharing something you create. I wish i could write down the stories living in my head, maybe someone would want to read them, maybe not. But i think, sharing your stories is sharing a part of yourself. A very personal part and i think it's really brave to do so.
Your story might become a cult story, you could create the next Monkey D. Luffy, or you could just bring a Tom Riley to the world. But it's something you decide to share with whoever is willing to give it a chance, and i think that's amazing.
I mean, think about it; you have this character, this story, this world built in your mind, and even though it started in your thoughts, it resonates with someone else in this huge world, someone else cares about it, loves it, wants to know more about it. That's just... amazing. Think about all the fan pages, the fanfiction, the fanart, all made about an idea created in another mind.
I can think about a lot of stuff i love and care about, things that weren't created by me, but still, they live in me, and in so many others. That's just insane.
A few years ago i remember reading a book, it was called "The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart" by R. Zamora Linmark and i remember the first time i read the book i got mad, like really mad because it didn't tell the story i was hoping to read. I spent months mad about it, just every time i remembered it i got mad again. Then for some reason, i decided to reread it. Which looking back makes no sense since i was so mad at that book. But still, i did. And the second time i read it, it hit differently. The second time i saw it. This is a story told by R. Zamora Linmark, not by me. The author had a story to tell and he told it, the way he saw it, the story he needed to tell. The story is not mine, it's his and that's the way he wanted to tell it, that's what he had to say.
That book changed me in a way. It made me understand that the world is full of different people with different perspectives and each and every one of us deserves the place to tell their stories and they deserve our respect and appreciation when doing so.
Every person has something to say, and they should say it the way they want to. They don't owe you their story, they are gifting you with what they created. You can take it or leave it, but they still put it in the world for people to see it, to enjoy it. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch, read, or listen to it. But you also don't have the right to hate them for it (unless it is something offensive or so, at least that's what i believe).
All this rumbling brings me to two instances in life i had/have a hard time with, the first one is the ending of 'How I Met Your Mother' which to this day i cannot let go of because i still get annoyed. And yeah, i see how hypocritical of me it is after all the stuff i said about the book that changed my way of seeing things. Still, for some reason, i just cannot get over it. That's the one ending that will probably haunt me forever.
The second instance is the writing of Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things. Stranger Things is, by far, my favorite show ever. At least it has been the last few years and Mike Wheeler has been my favorite character since the very first episode of it. Still, watching his story arc the last few seasons had me puzzled for a very long time. So much so that i couldn't even stand him in season 4... that was the first few times i watched the season. Then the 'The Duffer Brothers are telling their story' hit me and i became puzzled once again by Mike Wheeler, only this time it's more about what's the endgame of this character? why does he act the way he does? And so, i can live with the change of the character, still not understanding what is going on with him. I guess we'll have to wait for season 5 to hopefully understand what lies beneath it all.
I'm pretty sure i derailed from what this post was supposed to be about. But, i think it pretty much shows who i am. So i'm okay with it. At least at the moment.
There are a lot of things i would want to talk about, but i think, the world isn't ready yet.
Maybe someday.
Or never.
We'll see, maybe.
Xoxo, Wolfie.
